Gold: The rights and wrongs of Pac-12 spring ball
We’re less than a week removed from the last spring ball practice on the Pac-12 calendar, but with plenty of time to analyze some of the good and bad that we saw throughout spring.
Here are the rights — and wrongs — of the 2023 Pac-12 spring slate..
Right: All the drama
Just when it felt like we’d get year without chaos, the Pac-12 world once again flipped upside down this offseason. After adding Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams and Dan Lanning and Jordan Addison and Kalen DeBoer and plenty more last year, this was year was supposed to be a time to relax, one last swan song before UCLA and USC leave for the greener paychecks of the Big Ten.
Oh, who am I kidding? Who doesn’t love the sheer insanity?
Coach Prime. New coaches in Tempe and Palo Alto. Quarterback battles in a more than a third of cities.
It’s wild, wild west once more.
Wrong: Cal’s bubble wrap around Jaydn Ott
Justin Wilcox’s decision not to play emerging star running back Jadyn Ott in the Cal spring game was a disappointment. Ott had some of the best individual performances of the season by a Pac-12 back last year as a true freshman, but he was wildly inconsistent and, well, a freshman.
Had he been a returning senior bellcow with the entire team on his shoulders? Sure, keep him out. But he’s got work to do, and it was a missed opportunity.
Right: Colorado’s roster overhaul
It didn’t exactly go down in the kindest of ways (see below), but there’s no question that Deion “Coach Prime” Sanders raised the bar in Boulder in just a short time. Sure, it was drastic. Sure, it was downright cutthroat. But this isn’t tiddlywinks. Colorado was woefully uncompetitive at the Pac-12 level, and now the Buffaloes have a roster with drastically more talent.
That was evident in the spring game, at the quarterback position alone.
Wrong: Colorado’s roster overhaul
All the turmoil could have been avoided had Coach Prime just displayed a little empathy and grace to the players with whom he would soon part ways. Was he using motivational tactics early on to motivate some incumbent Buffaloes to raise their respective games? Maybe, and that would have been valid. Even if he knew many of the returning players were not long for the program, that would have been fine.
But Sanders displayed a callousness rarely seen at the college football level, and for a reason. If this doesn’t go well, he’ll deserve the criticism.
Right: Utah finds its Rose
It’s not that Brandon Rose lit the world on fire in Utah’s spring ball, but he did enough to likely secure the coveted backup spot for the Utes in an all-important year. With Cam Rising’s health in doubt for the start of next season, getting Rose — or Bryson Barnes, or Nate Johnson — caught up to speed was priority No. 1 for Kyle Whittingham, and it appears they accomplished the mission.
Rose is no Rising — not yet, anyway — but he is a better prospect than Barnes, and if pressed into action early, Whittingham should feel confident that he can compete.
Wrong: UCLA skips its spring game
If you think it’s bad that Ott skipped Cal’s spring game, what about the entire Bruins program skipping theirs?
Chip Kelly continued his recent tradition of treating UCLA’s final spring practice just the same as the 14 that preceded it: no pomp, no circumstance, little crowd. Instead of treating the spring game for what it is — an community meet-up to introduce the team to a wider audience — the Bruins just chugged right along. It’s not a surprise they often struggle to fill the Rose Bowl.
Right: DJ Uiagalelei has to earn it in Corvallis
Part of me thought the former 5-star Clemson quarterback would saunter into Oregon State and take a stranglehold of the starting quarterback position, which was barely propped up by Ben Gulbranson last year. It’s not Gulbranson’s fault that he was thrust into action too soon last year. He did well in leading the Beavers to a 7-1 mark as a starting quarterback, but the passing game was clearly the team’s weakness.
But Gulbranson — and especially freshman Aiden Chiles — impressed in the spring, which prevented Uiagalelei from running away with the gig.
Wrong: DJ Uiagalelei hasn’t earned it in Corvallis
Uiagalelei didn’t help his cause at times, either. Granted, this was his first spring executing Jonathan Smith’s offense, but for a 5-star prospect, he doesn’t always look it.
Deep down, Smith had to be hoping Uiagalelei was the clear-cut answer for a team that has aspirations of double-digit wins. And he very well could take off in the fall with an offseason to soak of some of the nuances of the playbook. But it wasn’t the splash both parties were hoping it would be.
Right: A trio of Heisman hopefuls
Speaking of splashes, the Pac-12’s upper echelon of quarterbacks only moved higher up the national rankings with Caleb Williams, Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix all spending the spring only adding to their prodigious promise.
We could be heading for the best passing performance in Pac-12 history between the 3 of them. None of the 3 showed any signs of regression in spring.
Wrong: Unsettled quarterback situations in the Bay
UCLA’s QB quandary was not solved in the spring, but that is only because the 3 contenders each offers a very distinct passer profile, with Ethan Garbers having system experience, Collin Schlee having starting experience and Dante Moore having all the potential in the world. Same with ASU’s Trenton Bourguet, Drew Pyne and Jaden Rashada. None is a bad option.
Cal and Stanford, though, have not had likely clubhouse leaders Sam Jackson IV and Ari Patu leave no doubt. That’s what both passing games needed. Obvious answers. Unfortunately, plenty of questions remain.